The Sixth International Coatings for Plastics Symposium and Exhibition was held at the Michigan State Management Education Center in Troy, MI, June 9-11, 2003. With over 20 technical papers presented, the Symposium focused on leading-edge issues in the coatings for plastic arena. Over 100 people attended the 22-invited-speaker technical presentations; networked and socialized at the receptions on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights; and either elected to attend the tour of the American Commodities Plastic Recycling operation in Flint, MI, on Wednesday afternoon, or opted to attend the tutorial on Paint on Plastics.

The technical sessions included a Monday morning plenary address by Dr. Lauren W. Hill, speaking on Property/Property Relationships of Coatings for Plastics, and a Tuesday keynote by Dr. David Bauer of The Ford Motor Co., speaking on Combining Failure Models, Environmental Load Distributions and Customer Perception of Failure to Generate Real World Durability Requirements. A Monday luncheon talk by James W. Carlisle of Rohm and Haas addressed Global Products or Local Supply for Automotive Coatings for Plastics.

Included in the technical sessions were topics that addressed adhesion, formulation, environmental standards for coatings, and surface damage resistance, e.g., scratch/mar and chip durability. A sampling of the industry experts presenting papers included Dr. Phil Yaneff of DuPont Performance Coatings, Migration of Reactable UVA and HALS in Automotive Plastic Coatings and Their Impact on Durability; Shawn Jeffers of DaimlerChrysler Corp., Durability Comparison of Fascia Material Systems; Dr. Vincent Jardret of MTS Systems Corp., Visco-elastic and Visco-plastic Analysis of Scratch Resistance of Organic Coatings; Dr. Daniel Kaute of PlasmaTreat North America, Atmospheric Pressure Plasma - Enabling Technology for Achieving the "Compact" and Cost Effective Paint Line of the Future; and Brian Hanrahan of Kyowa Hakko USA, Chemical Resistance of Self-Crosslinking Emulsion Coatings for Interior Plastics. Kevin A. Williams of the Eastman Chemical Co. received the Best Paper Award for his paper/presentation entitled Adhesion and Gasoline Resistance Performance Properties of Chlorinated and Non-Chlorinated Polyolefin Adhesion Promoter Blends for TPO Substrates.

New this year to the Symposium was a Sunday evening wine and cheese reception at the Troy Northfield Hilton (adjacent to the Michigan State Management Education Center), and a tour of the American Commodities Plastic Recycling Company in Flint, MI, on Wednesday afternoon. The tour allowed attendees to view the recyclate processes that take place on automotive components such as instrument panels and painted fascias. A tutorial on Coating and Durability of Painted Plastics, also new this year, was jointly presented by Dr. Rose A. Ryntz and Dr. Philip V. Yaneff, and was well received by the more than 50 attendees.

The Sixth International Coatings for Plastics Symposium and Exhibition, organized by Technical Conference Management, sponsored by Paint & Coatings Industry (PCI), and endorsed by the National Paint & Coatings Association, also hosted an exhibition of 16 companies displaying their wares for the plastics industry on Tuesday evening. The organizing committee would like to extend special thanks to the industrial sponsors for this year's event, which included Custom Precision R&D Testing Panels, Inc.; Coatings Resource Corp.; Wacker Silicones; ATOFINA; DuPont Automotive Coatings; NeoResins; United Paint; and Red Spot Paint and Varnish. c

Please visit the PCI website (www.pcimag.com) for details on the 2004 conference as they become available.